100 / 514
92
THE
SOUL
DRAWING NEAR
TO GOD.
{SERA!.
V.
Rom.
viii.
M6.
The
spirit
itself
ntalceth
intercession
in
us
with
groanings
that
canot
be
uttered.
And thus it
may
be, while
God
hides
himself, while
there
is
a veil
conceal-
ing
God
from
our
eyes,
while
there is
any special temp-
tation
like
a mountain
that
separates
between
God
and
our
souls, he may
send
his
Spirit
to
work
us
up
to
ear-
nest
desires and longings
after
him.
But
when
this
SPIRIT
OF
PRAYER
has
brought the
soul near, when
God
has been pleased to
turn
aside
the
veil, to remove the
mountain, and
to
discover himself
in
all his glory,
beauty, and
love,
then
there
will
be
ge-
nerally
the gift
of
prayer
also in
exercise
by
the
assist-
ance
of
the
prgnhised
Spirit;
and
such
persons many
times are able to address
themselves to
God
with
much
freedom, and
to
pour out
the soul before
God
in
pro-
per
words,
notwithstanding at
other
times they
appear
to
have
but
weak capacities.
When
they have such af-
fecting sights
of
their
own sin
and
guilt,
and such
sur-
prizing
views
of
the mercy
of God
manifested
to
them in
particular,
and
at
the sanie time
when
they look
upon
all things
round them
with
a
design
for the glory
of
God;
they
are both naturally and
divinely
taught to
pour out
their
souls
before God, and
represent their
cares and
circumstances
to him in affecting
language.
I
will
not
say
indeed,
it
is
always so when
any soul
gets
near
to
God
;
there must
be some
allowance made
for
the
different tempers
and constitutions,
as
I
shall
shew immediately.
There
have also been some
instances
of
holy men, whose voice has,
at such
a time, been
over
-
powered with divine pleasure,
all
their
powers have
been
transported and
overwhelmed with
rapturous
si-
lence; but
for the most
part
holy souls
have found an
uncommon liberty
of
language
at
the
throne
of
grace
at
such
seasons.
And
this
is
one reason,
I
am
persuaded,
why
the
gift
of prayer
is
not
so
common a thing
as
might
be
wished,
because
there
is
so
little nearness
to
God
among the professors
of
our
day.
The
gift
of
prayer
abounds not
among christians
in
our
churches
;
O
that
I
could
say
it
was
found
more gloriously among ministers,
while in
your
name
we
speak
to
the
great God
!
But
if
there
were
a constant laborious
diligence in
the
soul to
get
nearer
to
God,
in all
our
secret
as well as
public
ad-
dresses to
him,
we shoulh
find
more
abundance
of
the